Hungry for more? Food theme serves a second helping this fall

Food For All, Carolina’s pan-University academic theme, didn’t take a summer break, said the co-chairs of the theme’s steering committee. And the theme will serve up even more this fall, including a speaker series, a summit to propose a statewide food policy and a new food studies class.

“We can’t meet the demand for food studies classes,” said co-chair Marcie Cohen Ferris, professor in the Department of American Studies and author of The Edible South. “Students are demanding more.”

Over the summer, Food For All co-sponsored several programs, said co-chair Alice Ammerman, director of the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and a professor in the Department of Nutrition in the Gillings School of Global Public Health.

One particularly close to home for the researcher was the launch of a pilot program that brought local fresh produce to University employees. Employees at NC TraCS Institute and the Carolina Population Center participated in a community-supported agriculture (CSA) project, with subscriptions priced on a sliding scale.

The goals of an employee-based CSA project are to make local fresh produce more affordable and accessible and to support the local agricultural economy. “The delivery of the boxes resulted in a lot of sharing and trading of vegetables and recipes as well as consuming more and different kinds of fresh produce,” Ammerman said. An evaluation is underway to assess program impact and determine potential for expansion.

Another Food For All summer project was the continuation of the Food for the Summer lunch program, with partners InterFaith Council for Social Service, No Kid Hungry NC and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. The program provided more than 40,000 meals to needy children in the community this summer.

Popular Food for All projects continuing this fall include the Carolina Cooks, Carolina Eats class and research project, begun in spring 2015 and the Edible Campus, which promotes edible landscaping on campus and will be managed by the North Carolina Botanical Garden. Food For All has also provided many micro grants to students, faculty and staff for food-related projects, including the new student-run café in the Campus Y, Meantime Coffee.

Planned for the fall

Introduction to Food Studies (NUTR/AMST/ANTH 175)
3:35-4:25 p.m. MWF
This multidisciplinary course is designed to be a gateway to, perhaps in the future, a food studies major. Twenty lecturers from 10 different disciplines will speak over the span of the course. About 75 students are registered for the class, which staff members can enroll in or audit.

Carolina Food Summit
Sept. 28-29
Gerrard Hall (Sept. 28)
Rock Quarry Farm (Sept. 29)
Over the course of two days, North Carolinians, thinkers and leaders in the food community will discuss the issues, challenges, successes and failures of the state’s food economy and culture. Co-sponsored by Food For All, the Jamie Kirk Hahn Foundation, EdNC.org and TerraVita. $10 for students, $150 two-day pass for others. For an agenda and ticket information, visit carolinafoodsummit.com.

Food For All Lecture series

“A Conversation with Elissa Altman”
5 p.m. Oct. 5
Pleasants Family Assembly Room, Wilson Library
Elissa Altman will discuss her new memoir, Treyf: My Life as an Unorthodox Outlaw. Altman is the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of Poor Man’s Feast: A Love Story of Comfort, Desire and the Art of Simple Cooking. Co-Sponsored by Carolina Center for Jewish Studies and the Department of American Studies.

Carlos Monteiro
“The Global Shift to Ultra-Processed Foods: Health Impact and Policy”
3:30 p.m. Nov. 7
Genome Sciences Building, Room G200
A world-renowned epidemiologist from Brazil, Carlos Monteiro studies a range of nutrition issues, most recently obesity and reducing processed foods consumption through policy and food systems change. He was the architect of the recent Brazilian dietary guidelines, which are some of the most progressive dietary guidelines in the world.